Ahhh the smell in the air of a new season.......brings a little bounce back to some old jaded supporters......and it seems coaches too.

According to a fellow 'put out to pasture' retiree who wandered into the club the other day it seems that forever young Dennis has made some changes in the way he does things.

After experimenting last year Dennis apparently has now handed over the day to day training and conditioning of the player group to his assistants, this includes those one on one chats that are critical to a players development. Dennis is still taking the main sessions but has embraced the Sheedy method of 'overseer.' Apparently the assistant coaches have embraced this 'new' way and the player group has responded accordingly, with the last vestiges of dissent evaporating into the recent past.

Also look for some changes in the gameplan, with emphasis on delivering the ball to the best option rather than 'banging it long to the hotspot.' Last years bang and crash method in the contest will still be employed but should work better now with the younger bodies putting on that much needed bulk and strenght. Finally as the papers have flagged, the "blouse' could be spending time in the middle and if it works out Houla could become a permanent mid fielder. He has the speed and skills required just needs to be a little less gun shy.

Oh I hear the temple bells ringing, time for my midafternoon meditations.

Peace and Happiness

BM.

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A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" -Winston Churchill

L.M 35-06

I thought you said you were gone for a long time BM?

You've had more farewells than the QEII!

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BM=John Farnham

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The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.

Ronald Reagan

I love Pagan as a bloke in footy circles and his classic style however, the focus for mine is all wrong, Pagan is not developing players skills. for example T-bird may have put on ten or so kgs, but has his kicking skills improved?
I can't think of one "not so natural" talent who can execute a pass by foot better than two years after they started with our club. Take Nick Stevens his kicking has really slipped since leaving the skills based training at PA. Last I checked it was Football not Greco-Roman wrestling.
The "old time" coaches Pagan has wouldn't know how to excute modern skills training. We don't need 22 Glen Archers, and sadly we haven't even got one after all these years of crash and bash. We are still one of the softest teams going around. Decision making and skills are 95% of the game, one on one body contests are becoming very secondary, and if the rules keep changing even less. Shove your beep tests and 4km time trials, beating up tackle bags,
I wonder if anyone will take young Murph aside and show him a video of his last quarter brain freeze running down the inner wing yesterday? It's actually unfair to mention him because he is one of the best positioned and foot disposal skilled players in the side already, but I needed an example of what I can only assume does not happen???
We have been left so far behind in the last five years, partly because of the draft penalties and partly because we are outdated and stubborn in our training and match day methods. I won't mention list management for risk of upsetting people more and opening old wounds. Maybe Pagan's belief in hard work is going to pay off, but in the modern era, the skilled players train hard too, just ask Chris Judd.

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Green Shooter

Yes just an old relationship that will not go away

Despite the changes I have made in my life over the past few months. One earthly desire I still indulge in....is Carlton.

I will be popping in from time to time to say hello and to pass on anything interesting I come across or to make an observation. But engaging in longwinded debates about the club, politics or proving 'mine bigger than everyone elses" is something that I have sort of grown out of.

Cheers

Mark

PS Didn't Setanta look good yesterday!!

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A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" -Winston Churchill

L.M 35-06

Great post bookie.

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There's so much I could say...

So you're just staying away from Bigfooty!

Mature people are so boring.

More comebacks than Helen Porter Mitchell.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

Bookie wrote:

Please explain how you would like pagan to teach someone like Justin Davies how to kick? Or in days gone by, Brett Johnson or Darren Hulme. I'm extremely interested in your response.

I believe it is up to our recruiting officers to recruit players who are highly skilled, players whose skills will improve naturally via countless training sessions using the football. I don't expect pagan to specifically teach poorly skilled footballers how to kick the football straight. Either they kick straight, or they don't. I cannot recall a footballer who made it onto an AFL list being a shocking kick & subsequently turned it around courtesy of their senior coach.

But I'm more than happy for you to prove me wrong Bookie with either some suggested strategies or perhaps some names of players & coaches who've been able to learn/teach how to kick as an adult.

I think most of us who can remember will say that "The Duke" Earl Spalding improved the reliability of his kicking markedly over his time at Carlton.

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"Hence you will not say that Greeks fight like heroes but that heroes fight like Greeks"?

Winston Churchill

Fair enough Agro, yes earl did improve his kicking as his career progressed. Would you put it down to Parkin's tutorage or Earl showing some personal pride & deciding to do something about it his terrible kicking skills?

I know the buck stops with the senior coach but I suppose my point is that a player like Davies has to improve his kicking skills himself, Pagan can't kick the pill for him!

Sometimes the recruiting staff can only do so much, given draft penalties, high picks and players meant to be 34-40 on the list.

Its the coaching staff who take players with limited ability and improve them to be valuable contributors.

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"The ability to speak doesn't make you intelligent." Qui-Gon Jinn 15-05-2005

"there’s more chance of me becoming the full forward for the [Western Bulldogs] than there is of any change in the Labor Party." Julia Gillard 18-05-2010

TrueBlueBrad wrote:

I have to disagree - players with "limited ability" do not belong on AFL lists wasting coaching staff's time (or supporters time, for that matter).

My, my , my .. if it isnt Dame Molly Melba reincarnated....

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Due to recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas, and oil....... the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Fair enough, Parko did have a big role in curing Earl's yips. He recognised that Earl was overthinking his set shots (and as with a lot of players, his running shots were much better than his set shots). He advised him not to spend a lot of time setting up for a kick. He was to back up a set number of steps and then he was to immediately run in and kick. It worked a treat.

But that is one out of the box. At the same time, Sticks' goalkicking deteriorated somewhat - the helicopter punt became more prevalent. SOS's kicking was sometimes a bit erratic. And noone had to teach Bradley, Campo or Diesel how to kick.

Unfortunately, many players reach the AFL without receiving much training on their skills. At junior levels, there just aren't the resources to provide that, and the concentration is on teaching them teamwork, positional play and strategy. Some players have inherent weaknesses in their techniques. And with lists of 44, individual coaching would be difficult at AFL level too.

But there have been successes already. We can't forget that Santy and Aisake haven't picked up their kicking skills by osmosis. I have seen Libba working with the boys on their kicking after training and I'm sure that is only the tip of the iceberg. Apparently, Libba has also been working with Walker over the break as well. I'm sure there are efforts to teach technique to those whose techniques are flawed. But as with learning a musical instrument, that tuition has to be followed by a lot of practice in the absence of the teacher. To commit changes in technique to muscle memory, you need about 1000 repetitions, and as Barassi used to say, "Practice doesn't make perfect - perfect practice makes perfect". So if a player isn't committed to entrenching the changes, the old technique will return under pressure.

The practice that players put into their technique shouldn't take place at main training sessions. There are only about 3 sessions a week in a preseason that lasts only about 3 months before practice matches and preseason competitions start. They are needed for moulding set plays, strategies, styles of play and teamwork. And for building fitness. As they say, the players are at their fittest and most muscular at the start of the season, and it then just a case of trying to slow down the deterioration over the course of the season. Particularly for key forwards and defenders, core strength and power have always been tools of the trade. And in an era where the midfielders run half-marathons each game, it is not surprising that this is the most basic building block for success.

Just as a player who is short of fitness should be running outside training sessions, so a player with a problem with his kicking should be doing work by himself or with some teammates in his own time.

But I am a bit mystified about the claims that our training sessions don't incorporate skills training. The boys don't just stand around hitting each other with pillows. I have seen drills focussing on running goal kicking, on kicking to a player leading from the goalsquare, on circle work involving handpasses and then kicks to leading players, on working the ball out by foot from the defensive 50. Yes, there are tackle bags, and I for one would like to see our players make their tackles stick unlike some of the disgraceful attempts in the game against Geelong, for example. The drills involving the players wearing bags attempting to bump the player with the ball are to simulate some physical pressure to allow the players to practice kicking and handpassing under match-like pressure. Remember when the boys at North marvelled at the exploits of McAdam who was able to lob long kicks into the ball-bins? Players at other clubs made it clear that they wouldn't be impressed by that until ball-bins became a part of football games. I would rather see the boys practising kicking, marking and handballing under match-like pressure than playing kick-to-kick.

So what is it about Port's training sessions which are so much better at developing players' skills than ours? I haven't seen any other club's training sessions, so treat this as a real inquiry rather than as a rhetorical question.

Tony Roche can't take the credit for Roger Federer being the best tennis player in the world. It is 99% due to his hard work and natural talent.

It is no different in footy.

Brett Johnson, Fletcher, Franchina, McCormick, Hulme, Bowyer etc have been delisted essentially due to their average footballing skills.

I guess, my earlier post is mere hypothesis, based on conversations and not provable facts. (Nick Stevens commented upon joining Carlton how little skills work we did compared to Port Adelaide).
Luca in answer to your question its all about repitition, practice practice practice, Less time playing war and marathon more time learning football skills. Sounds silly perhaps but I would train with a reduced size skill ball and alternate. Biomech focus on how players kick the ball, even to point of reteaching them kicking the most proven correct way. Similar to how Cricketers work on their actions. Individual skills sessions to target the weakness.
People seem to concede that nature beats nurture.
I am rather confused with this considering a guy like Bret Johnson could never learn to kick, yet seemingly people are supporting two Irish lads on the list who when they arrived never kicked a ball in anger, in fact at the time of Carlos's arrival Johno had already played 38 games of AFL and eight years of development including WA state captain from memory.
I will concede foot skills are highly in the nature, although improvement not without precedence. That said I strongly believe the decision making is teachable and presumably what DP gets 600k a year for. He is not paid to give up and we as members should expect nothing less.

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Green Shooter

Look I think its fair to say that Pagan is more of an expert than any of the rest of us. Any approach he chooses to take is, I am sure, considered and worthwhile. Let's put a bit of faith in the hands of the man. But please Bluemark - just don't say he is doing a 'Sheedy' - it gives me the creeps